Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Sunday, August 27, 2006 3:20:58 PM
OK, READERS, its time for another thought experiment about the interrelationship of attorneys and judges. A reminder: A major premise of this blog is that Lawyers protect Judges, Judges protect Lawyers, and no one protects the public.
For the purposes of this thought experiment, lets assume that at some time in the future, the legislature takes notice of the epidemic of long term failures of judges to rule on motions and decides to make it possible for them to be fined.
Suppose also, that the fine the legislature authorized the state supreme court to levy was three months' pay, or something in excess of $25,000.
Just to make it more interesting, suppose the legislature decided to insert a provision that the state supreme court could not fine a judge at all unless the damaged litigant specifically requested that a fine be imposed.
The first issue in this thought experiment that should be considered is whether any attorney would believe he could continue to practice law in the state if his clients began making requests that the judges in his area of practice be fined?
If the answer is no, as it appears to me to be, the second issue is: "Would your lawyer even tell you that such a provision existed if by doing so he might be ostracized by judges and lawyers in his community? As you think about this, keep in mind that a litigant wouldn't need an attorney to assist in making this kind of request in this scenario.
I like fun thought experiments, and to make this even more fun, assume that the state supreme court were authorized to keep secret the amount of the fines actually made, and even whether the judge was fined at all.
In this scenario, assuming a litigant discovered the law on his own and made the complaint, would the state supreme court have any incentive to issue any fine at all, let alone the maximum fine?
THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
It turns out that the law exists, exactly as described in this thought experiment (CRS 13-5-135 which sets the time limit of 90 days, and CRS 13-5-136, which sets the terms. It hasn't and will never correct the problem. Lawyers just don't tell their clients about it, even when they have to hire retired judges to make decisions.
The corollary of my "Lawyers protect Judges . . ." is that if lawyers don't protect judges, they can't expect to be lawyers all that long.
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Notes
1. I found this law all by myself. When someone gets motivated to learn the law involving his particular problem, they do lots of research. It would be a mistake for a judge to blame my attorney for this post.
2. I plan a series of thought experiments on how seriously the state supreme court takes its responsibility to discipline judges, but that is many posts away.
3. While I knew about this law when I gave the retention commission their input, I didn't mention it out of fear it would be interpreted as a threat and thus a way to discredit me.
4. I'd like to link the two laws, but the legislature is using frames, making it hard to figure out how to make that happen. Go to the Colorado Legislature's site and look for the statutes.
Are we having fun, yet?